Outside Our View
by Kommi
Summary: After a year of peace and silence from Dr. Robotnik, the Sonic Team made the mistake of letting their guards down. But when Eggman sends some old enemies as well as a vicious newcomer after them, is there any way for them to rekindle their friendships and protect both the Chaos Emeralds and the entire world? TailsXCream / ShadowXRouge - discontinued because sonic fandom is cancer
1. Chapter 1

I wrote a ton of fanfiction when I was a kid but never actually finished any, but this time I promise I'm going to finish it now that I'm older.

Reviews are highly encouraged so that I can keep myself motivated to get this done ;)

X

Back when things had been a lot more simple and carefree, it felt as though things would never change. For better or worse, the same ideas and themes would surround the hundreds upon hundreds of hours that we spent adventuring in a multitude of different places. Things would always resolve themselves peacefully within a few hours, never leaving any room for things to turn needlessly drastic or unpleasant. And, for what it was worth, everyone was happy to have things stay the same, including myself.

I am Miles Tales Prower, the designated side kick to Sonic the Hedgehog who would always find a himself doing most if not all of the work without getting nearly enough credit. But I was never distraught about this, I was instead simply content with the only reward I received being the time I was able to spend bonding and enjoying myself with the people that I came to call my best friends. The silliness and non-seriousness of the problems we found ourselves in never left anyone any room to act selfish, because, if one person decided to sit out a mission for some reason, there would always be another person available to come in and help work everything out. Or, at least that was what I thought.

"Hey sonic, can you come help me out over here for a second?"

It was a sunny day in late July when I decided that it was time for me to add some more upgrades to my Plane, Tornado, that were much too complicated for me to understand or pull off without any help. I knew Sonic had no idea what was going on either, but I would always ask for his input if not only because his simplistic answers would always help me remind myself of something that I might have overlooked.

He raised his sunglasses and looked at me with an inquisitive gaze before leisurely standing from his lounge chair and walking up to me.

"Well, what's the problem here pal?" He started nonchalantly, walking around Tornado and inspecting the half dismantled plane laid out before him, "did you forget where to put the wings?"

"No!" I retorted, faking offense in response to Sonic's banter, "I'm actually trying to infuse our second chaos emerald with the plane so that we have enough energy to fly without needing to use gas."

I clapped my hands together to knock some of the dirt that had gathered on them off and walked towards a large hunk of metal that sat in a corner of the room before continuing, "but every time I try to put the emerald in the slot that I made for it, it gets super hot and burns my hand through my gloves. I already changed the plane's power surges pretty drastically too, so I don't think there's any way to undo all of this and put it together like it was before either. We have to figure it out."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Tails!" Sonic shook his hands frantically in front of my face, "did you check with everyone to make sure that it was cool before you did all this? I know that if it were me I wouldn't want anyone using their emeralds for personal stuff!"

"It's fine," I shrugged, "when we originally split everything up we said that anyone could use the emerald for whatever they wanted as long as no one got hurt."

After fighting with Eggman over the chaos emeralds for what seemed like the hundredth time, everyone in our group decided that it would be best if we all split up the emeralds amongst ourselves so that no one person could get greedy and decide to take them all for themselves. to get all of them. Sonic and I got three emeralds, Knuckles and his clan got another two, and Cream, Cheese, and Amy got the last two. We were sure that Eggman would come after them again at some point, but for right now spreading them out forced Eggman to spend more time formulating a plan to come get them. And that gave us more time to hang out and chill out, and none of us could complain about that.

"Speaking of the others, I could have sworn that something was going on today..." Sonic said, pacing and scratching his chin in confusion, "but it's so late now that it might be took late to remember or do anything about it."

I was still wracking my brain trying to find a solution for the engine problem that Sonic had still not helped me with, but I still absentmindedly let my mind wander and attempt to remember what Sonic and I were forgetting. I could have sworn that it was on the tip of my tongue...

Cream!

"Oh crap, it's Cream's birthday, Sonic!"

Sonic met my eyes with a look that I could only describe as terrified as he listened to what I was saying. There was a brief moment of silence as we both simply stared at each other in disbelief. Finally, after a few moments, I spoke up desperately.

"We need to leave right this second, everyone probably got together over an hour ago!" I shouted, "even with your speed, it'll take us at least ten minutes to get there without Tornado! Quick, help me put everything together and we can just leave the engine over there-"

Before I could finish the sentence, I felt Sonic grab me by the wrist as an unbelievable burst of wind shot every strand of hair on my body backwards. I felt a pit of nausea begin to gather deep down in my gut, but I quickly dismissed it by gulping aggressively. I grit my teeth in slight anger, always peeved whenever Sonic grabbed me and began running without saying anything anything. But before I could voice my discontent, I heard Sonic shout back at me, "think of an excuse before we get there, I really don't want them getting any more mad at us!"

He did have a point, but there was nothing believable that we could say at this point that would soften the blow. We've already said that Tornado broke down when we missed Knuckle's party, we already said that we were attacked by Eggman when we forgot about Big's huge fishing tournament, and we've even already said that I had to save Sonic from drowning in the ocean back when we were late to giving out the chaos emeralds. There really was nothing left for us to say, and the struggling look on Sonic's face showed that he had come to the same conclusion. Maybe saying that we forgot would earn us some respect at least, even if my usual punctuality and Sonic's being the fastest thing on the plan didn't really give us any excuses.

Damn it.

As the familiar pink house that Cream and Cheese shared with Amy came into view, my heart began pounding harder than Sonic's sudden running could ever make it. We may have missed a lot of different things over the years, but Cream's eighteenth birthday was by far the most personal and important. Nothing could have made me feel like more of, frankly, an insensitive asshole.

Sonic and I both stopped right outside the back door of the house and exchanged concerned looks. From the other side of the thin wooden door, we could hear all of what was going inside of the house.

"It's been over an hour at this point, I really don't think that they're coming," a voice that we recognized as Knuckle's spoke in his usual gruff tone, "we even started the party an hour later than usual to give them time to forget about it."

At this point Knuckles gave out an audible sigh, opening the front door to leave before saying, "I'm gonna go on and get out of here before it gets too dark to get home. Happy birthday, Cream, I'm sure that everything was mostly Sonic's fault. Tails would have been here if he could have, I'm sure."

"It really doesn't matter," Cream spoke for the first time in a quiet, almost defeated tone.

With one last goodbye, Knuckles stepped outside and closed the door softly behind him. I heard the soft clapping of what I assumed to be Amy patting Cream's head right before Cream let out a single, pitiful sniffle.

"Chao..." Cheese's sympathetic moan echoed throughout the house and my heart ached even worse every second that I listened to it. I didn't think that there was anyway that I could feel any worse at that moment, and then Cream sniffles again.

"We have to do something!" I whispered harshly to sonic. Hoping that he had any ideas to make me feel any better about the current situation. He simply shrugged, a defeated look on his face.

"So you two finally show up two hours late?"

I could have sworn that I heard Amy's voice come from beside me, but something made it impossible for me to look and confirm this for myself. After a few moments, I was finally able to look for myself, and I immediately wished that I hadn't.

Amy had a look of pure, unadulterated anger across her usually calm and serene face. But that's not what got to me. What got to me was the figure of Cream right behind her with tear stained palms right underneath a face filled with both sadness and surprise. Amy finally spoke again, "if you guys are this late, why even bother coming at all!"

Immediately after this sentence had finished, as if it were a cue for us to leave, I felt a familiar nausea in my stomach and grip on my wrist as Sonic grabbed onto me and began running away. Though initially relieved to be free from that extremely uncomfortable situation, this was quickly replaced with a feeling of disgust towards myself as I saw for a brief second the image of Cream reaching out towards me. And if may have been my over dramatic mind adding to the situation, but I could have sworn that I saw more streams of tears beginning to fall down her face. She could have been saying a lot of things, but it looked a lot like she was saying my name.

The entire way back to the house with Sonic, I was completely limp and defeated. Sonic would try to start idle conversation to cut the tension, but I never responded with any enthusiasm. And when we returned to the house, I went and feel right onto my bed, not caring to fix the dismantled plane parts that sat in the runway. I couldn't sleep, but I stayed like that for the rest of the night.


	2. Chapter 2

The updates will eventually start coming less frequently, but for now I feel inspired to get this story up and going.

Again, review and I might be inspired to put the next chapter up quicker ;)

X

It had been years since we had seen each other, much less worked together, and yet the second she saw me entering the room from the corner of her eye she jumped up from her seat like an excited dog and greeted me as if I had been an old friend instead of a past colleague. I wasn't the type of person to respond enthusiastically to such needless charisma, but at the moment I felt much too polite to shut her down with my usual dismissal of harsh words.

"Hello Rouge, it really has been a long while, hasn't it?" I aloud before muttering to myself, "not long enough though if you ask me,"

"Oh Shadow, you really haven't changed a bit!" The scantily clad bat exclaimed excitedly, swatting at my shoulder as she laughed to herself. "It's been over a year since we tried to get the chaos emeralds from sonic and his pals. I wonder what's taken Eggman so long to reach out to us again..."

"Dr. Robotnik, actually," I quickly corrected, "you really don't want to call him that anywhere where he might be able to hear you. I promise it isn't a good idea."

"Oh, I know," she swatted my shoulder again and let out a light chuckle. "But don't worry about me, worry about that friend of yours that Eggman told me about. I'm surprised he's not here yet, I thought he'd be coming with you honestly."

"I actually told him to stay behind a bit," I explained, somewhat taken aback by her knowing about the guest I invited along, "it took every ounce of trust Dr, Robotnik had in me to let me bring him along, so I didn't think he'd be excited enough to go out of his way to tell you about him."

"He actually wouldn't stop talking about him for even a second. When he asked me to join up, he used his talents as a bargaining tool. He said that I'd be lucky enough to meet him if I decided to help out." She took a quick look around the room to ensure that no one was around, "he said that the kid made you look like a pansy."

"He really said that, huh?"

I grit my teeth in a mixture of anger and frustration, not exactly happy that Dr. Robotnik would put me so far down below someone he had just met.

Just as these thoughts entered my head, I heard the soft clank of a door opening on the other side of the room. When I saw who it was that had opened the door, my previous jealousy quickly vanished, making was for the adoption of a much more pleasant demeanor.

"Shade!" I waked towards my old friend with an outstretched hand to shake his, "how ya been?"

In front of me stood a red hedgehog, one that held the same body figure as sonic and I, yet was covered in a dark red fur coat that seemed to shine as it reflected the lights that lit the room. He grabbed my hand with a steady grip and gave the handshake that I had asked for. I could not help but gaze down at the expensive looking watch that he always seemed to be wearing every time I saw him quickly before matching his eye contact with my own once again.

"I'm doing alright," he started, letting go of my hand and letting his arm fall to his side, "I came from a decent walk away, so I'm kind of hoping that Dr. Robotnik gets here soon so we can get everything over with and I can start heading back."

"You mean Eggman, right?"

"And who's that?" Shard questioned, looking over at Rouge after she had tried to correct him.

"Well, usually I wouldn't give you my name because it doesn't matter since we are just working together," she lowered her eyelids slightly in an almost seductive gaze towards Shard, "but I'll make an exception for you. I'm Rouge."

She stood from the wall that she had been leaning on and offered Shade her hand for a handshake. To my surprise, Shade did not grab it with the usual force and steadiness that I had come to expect. Instead, he gingerly wrapped his fingers around her palm and bowed his head in a very polite and formal manner. If it had been a hundred years prior, I'm sure he would have kissed her hand before letting go.

"Hohohoho... someone around here finally knows how to treat a lady."

I ignored the slight jab in my direction, instead looking towards the door that Shard had come from, wondering to myself when exactly Eggman would be arriving. I had been there for a solid ten or twenty minutes at that point, and Dr. Robotnik really wasn't the type of person to keep you waiting; especially when he was depending on you to do a certain task like he was depending on me.

"Well I am just so sorry to keep you all waiting!"

As soon as I began pondering these thoughts, the lights in the room began to slowly dim as a voice rang out with a suddenness that made all three of us flinch in surprise. And before I could determine just what was going on, the room began to fill with a soft cloud of fog that entered through the air vents. While looking around the room trying to figure out what was going on, I didn't notice the door begin to open, revealing a large man with an extremely thick mustache that extended at least a couple of inches past the edges of his face on either side.

"Dr. Robotnik is finally here, so you may all cease your worrying and come to me!"

I couldn't help but cringe at the needlessly dramatic entrance that Dr. Robotnik always used every time I saw him. A glance to my side told me that Shade felt the same way, as he was shaking his head in disgust and clicked his tongue to himself. For someone who always have off the desire of wanting to be taken completely seriously, he sure did pull off a lot of stunts that made you want to treat him exactly the opposite.

He stepped into the room and sat on an extremely elegant chair behind a barren desk that I could only guess had never been used before. He gestured for us to approach him, saying, "come now, don't be shy! I promise I won't bite unless I like you!"

Although his words didn't necessarily encourage me to follow with what his gestures were saying, I still stepped forward silently with everyone else.

"Now, let's get down to business. Oh, and sorry I was a tad late, traffic was terrible!" He started, "now listen up, I don't want to have to repeat myself."

"I've been waiting for a bit to go after the chaos emeralds again because I wanted them to think that their dumb little plan of splitting the emeralds up actually scared me off, when in reality it just made it easier to deal with those fools!" He slammed his fists onto the desk in front of him and let out a bellowing laugh, "and now that they have their guards down, I can finally start pulling off the best plan that I've conceived yet!"

He then gave off a huge chortle, though he stopped abruptly and pushed his outstretched finger in the direction of Shade.

"And by 'best plan I've conceived yet', I mean that you're amazing and you're gonna be in charge of getting the chaos emeralds!"

While Shade offered an overly obedient 'yes sir!', Rouge and I both gave Dr. Robotnik and each other confused glances, thinking to ourselves that he may have just forgotten about the two of us. Finally, Rouge spoke aloud, "why are we here then, what are we supposed to do?"

"Well, obviously Shade might need some help with the mission, even if it means having one of you go grocery shopping so that he can be in the best physical condition possible."

As soon as he had finished speaking, mine and Rouge's jaws dropped in disbelief and anger. But before we could do it say anything, Dr, Robotnik spoke up again, "of course, you two will still be receiving the same payment as always, even if it is less than I'm paying Shade. Look at this as an easy day at work."

And with that, Dr. Robotnik stood and walked out the door, stopping only long enough to inform us that we would be meeting at the same place next week to update him on the progress we've made.

"Well, there ya go," Rouge let out a loud groan, "talk about being appreciated."

"Don't listen to him, I can tell he's never been much of a smart guy. And, for the record, I'm not going to make you guys go grocery shopping for me." Shade consoled the both of us, putting his hand comfortingly on Rouge's shoulder, "this isn't gonna be as easy as Dr. Robotnik thinks it's gonna be. There's a reason you guys have failed so many times, and it's not because you guys are incapable. He should've learned that by now."

We all gave a silent agreement before starting to heard our separate ways as we each started towards a different exit.

"Let's all go back to my place, actually," Shade spoke up with a snap of his finger, "we can go hang out and figure out exactly what we are gonna do about the chaos emeralds. Not to mention it's a new place, so I haven't been able to break it in yet."

I was apprehensive at first, but Rouge was extremely quick to agree and begin pestering me to do the same. After hearing the both of them complain, it finally became too difficult to refuse.

And with that, we all made our way through the forest in a direction we had never been before.


	3. Chapter 3

I haven't gotten a review yet, but I hope that it will come in time :(

I'm trying to get involved in this Sonic Fanfiction community but am having trouble finding any good stories on my own, so if you decide to leave a review you should totally recommend some good stories to read PLS :)

Also, if any editors out there want to work on this story to fix some of the awkward sentences and grammar that I'm sure are there, feel free to hit me up!

X

The next morning came quickly, something that I was relieved by considering that the guilt I felt had stuck with me throughout the night and made it impossible to get even an eyeful of sleep. I wasn't sure that I needed to say to fix things, but I knew that at the very least I had to say SOMETHING to Cream.

I sat up from my bed just as tired as I had been when I first laid down on it eight hours before. I stretched the kinks out of my joints and stood up, taking a moment to contort and stretch out my sore back.

"I really need to get a new bed or some new pillows at some point..." I muttered to myself, stepping out of my room and into the kitchen. I poured a bowl of cereal for myself and sat down at the small wooden table that Sonic and I shared. He should have been awake at this point, but I was much too tired to notice. I finished my breakfast without much thought and made my way into the bathroom.

I couldn't help but smirk at the image of myself that I saw in the mirror, amused by the amount of hair tufts that stood straight atop my head and wouldn't flatten no matter how much I wetted or brushed them. Not sleeping at all probably causes me to twist and turn in my bed much more than usual, which could have explained my annoying hair. After a few minutes I accepted defeat and came to terms with the fact that I would be stuck with bad hair for the rest of the day. I quickly brushed my teeth and stepped out into the hanger, expecting my plane to be waiting patiently.

Instead, I was met with the different pieces of my plan sprawled randomly on the ground around the hangar. I cursed lightly to myself, knowing that it would be unsafe for my plane if I didn't put it back together right away at that moment. So, with a scowl on my face, I set the still unfinished engine in the corner of the room and put the rest of the plane together as best I could. By the time I was finished, the sun was significantly higher in the sky and I could tell that it had been at least an hour or two.

Sonic had not stepped foot out of his room even once yet, so I began to get somewhat curious. Still, I didn't try to say anything to him in fear of waking him up uncomfortably. If he was still asleep after this long, he must have been up pretty late doing something.

At this point, there was nothing I could have done to delay my going to see Cream any further. I stepped outside and began waking toward Amy and Cream's house.

While letting Sonic run the two of us over there, something I wouldn't want to do unless completely necessary, it only took ten minutes to get to the house. Without him, it took around an hour. I would have usually been much too lazy to make this trip on my own, but this time I wanted the extra time to think over exactly what I was going to say when I saw Amy and Cream.

And yet, during the entire hour long walk, I couldn't think of a single thing to say that could have made things any better. My only hope, at this point at least, was to come clean and simply admit that I had forgotten. And even that didn't give me much room to hope for things to get better.

But before I could think of any other plan of action, the house came into view and all of my thoughts were replaced with ones telling me that I should just give up in all of this and head home to wait for everything to blow over. But I knew deep down that they would be stupid of me; that, and the thought of Cream staying mad at me any longer than she already had been made my stomach hurt.

I stood in front of the front door for at least a couple of minutes while trying to calm my furiously beating heard and muster up the courage to knock. It eventually took all of the effort I could muster to shut my eyes tightly and knock hard on the wooden door.

And then nothing happened.

A few minutes passed, and yet there was no answer. If anything, this made me extremely confused, especially considering that it was still relatively early out for everyone in the house to be out doing whatever it is that they do. It took much less grief to knock a second time, this time much harder. In response to my knocking, the door swung open slightly and showed the inside of the house to me. What I saw made my jaw and heart drop.

I immediately clenched my fists and sprinted into the ransacked house. All of the furniture had been thrown all over the house, and the floors were littered with glass from the broken desk lamps and light bulbs that fell from their designated spots.

I peered my head into each room as I passed and called out into them, my first priority being to find Amy, Cream, and Cheese, and making sure that they were in better shape than their house was.

"Is anyone there!?"

"Chao..."

From one of the bedrooms, I heard the pitiful squeak of a Chao that I assumed to be Cheese. I dug through the mess that had been made in the room while calling for Cheese until I found him lying on the ground underneath a tablecloth that had been thrown off the table a few feet away. Aside from a couple of bruises and some dirt that stuck to him, he looked fine; if not tired. I scooped him up into my arms and continued my search throughout the house.

When I climbed the stairs and entered the second story of the house, the conditions became much worse. Along with the furniture and broken glass strewn all around, there were now black smudges on the walls that looked almost like they came from a fire of some kind and holes all over the floor. I became much more worried at this point, having still not heard or found any trace of Amy or Cream. I shook my head before I could let my thoughts explore any dark, worst case scenarios.

"Cream!" I cried desperately, throwing open the final door that I had yet to look in. I may have wanted to find Cream, but the condition that I found her in didn't exactly leave any room for me to be relieved.

She sat inside of the room looking just as bad as I had imagined her to. There was a significant burn on her arm that she used her opposite hand to put pressure on and a tuft of fur atop her head that stood on end where it looked as though someone had grabbed her. An anger began growing deep inside of me as Cream looked up at me weakly to meet my worried look. A smile came across her face.

"Tails... Cheese..."

And with that, her head fell again as she let her exhaustion wash over her. I quickly ran over to her, placing Cheese on the ground next to her and putting my arms around her comfortingly.

"What happened!" I couldn't help but ask aloud softly, not thinking to consider how physically and emotionally drained she must have been. I had to know what had happened, and I had to do something about it as quickly as possible.

"I... don't know, really..." she spoke softly, shaking her head and grimacing in pain, "all I remember is a red hedgehog coming in and going crazy... he threw me in here and then I heard a bunch of banging outside..."

"What about Amy, have you seen her?"

"I think that's what the banging was..." she continued, drifting off slightly, "after hearing him throw me around, I'm sure she was prepared to fight or something..."

I let my arms fall to my sides as I sat down and lent on the wall beside Cream and Cheese, trying to process everything about the situation and starting to think about what the next move was. After a few minutes of letting Cream rest, I stood up and picked up Cheese.

"I really think that we should get out of here, just in case whoever did this decides to come back. Amy probably scared them off, I hope, but there's no telling what's gonna happen," I stated, letting Cheese get in a comfortable position while I held him, "can you walk at all?"

"Yea," she responded, struggling to stand from her seated position. Without thinking, I readjusted Cheese so that I was only carrying him with one arm and used the other arm to help support Cream. As soon as I realized how close a vicinity I was with Cream, I couldn't help but blush.

"Oh, come on you idiot!" I scolded myself in my head, "she needs help walking, stop thinking like a stupid kid!"

"Let's go to my house, I think it'll be safe for a while. Plus, I have some stuff to make you feel better."

She nodded softly in approval, wrapping her own arms around my torso to help balance herself. I blushed again and looked away quickly as to not let her see, still scolding myself. Maybe walking an hour to my house like this wouldn't be so bad...

We began our trek, and I quickly realized that helping a person walk with one arm and carrying a Chao in the other made things incredibly tiring and difficult, no matter how tightly the cuter of the two hugged me.


	4. Chapter 4

HEY I GOT MY FIRST REVIEW! I'm gonna make sure to reply to any reviews I get, so if there's anything you wanna ask or talk about just let me know, fellas.

X

Shade's home was a rather quaint little hut near to the lake yet still far enough away to not be bothered by anyone getting water. The inside was small and bland, containing only a single room that held what seemed like the bare essentials; a fireplace for food, a rug to put overtop the rough wooden flooring, and a few pots and pans strewn in random corners of the room. Shade sheepishly picked up the pots and pans and placed them in a designated spot next to the fireplace as we walked in. I scanned the room as I entered, noticing that there were no mats or mattresses to sleep on. If I knew I would have had to sleep on the floor, I would have surely refused the offer to spend the night.

"Oh!" Shade suddenly remembered, "I've got some air mattresses over here, let me get them out and start blowing them up. Give me a few minutes."

With that, Shade stepped outside for a few minutes, leaving me and Rouge to ourselves. She looked over to me and made an amused face, "I really like it here, it's more homely than either of our places."

"Hey! You haven't seen my house in over a year!" I retorted with a grimace, "but you're still right I guess. I can tell he built this place himself and only gave himself exactly what he thought he needed."

"Exactly my point," Rouge nodded and smirked, "sometimes we really get each other, ya know?"

"I wouldn't go that far, exactly..." I dismissed quickly, breaking eye contact.

"You're no fun," she pouted, crossing her arms like a child.

There was a moment of awkward silence, at least awkward for me, that didn't end until Rouge finished her pouting and spoke up again.

"Well, what's the deal with you and Shade?" She questioned, "how did you meet him exactly? You don't seem like the social type."

"I'm not," I admitted while taking a seat on the floor next to the wall beside me, "we did some work together through the years and I though that it might be beneficial to introduce him to Dr. Robotnik. I guess it worked out, cause now he's on board and we don't have very much to do."

"Yea, that's true I guess." Rouge agreed somewhat tentatively, "but I still feel unappreciated. I get that we don't work with Eggman as much as we used to, but we always got our jobs done on time mostly, not to mention that we do whatever he says without question."

"You're thinking too much into it," I quickly dismissed, "Shade can get everything done quick because he's smart and powerful even if he was on this mission alone. The fact that we are involved at all is appreciation enough."

"But what makes him so powerful?" She questioned curiously.

"You'll find out soon enough." I responded.

"I'm back!"

With that, Shade opened the door and walked in with a huge smile on his face, three fully inflated mattresses dragging behind him. He placed the mattresses onto the ground in a triangular formation and then placed pillows and blankets from his shelf on top of them. He laid down on the mattress closest to the door and motioned for us to lay down onto ours.

We talked incessantly throughout the night, staying awake until late into the night telling stories about our adventures and learning about each other's lives. We told Shade about our having to find the Chaos Emeralds, and in return he would tell us about the land thousands of miles away that he called home.

"It was a frozen wonderland, snow and ice wherever you looked." He spread his arms out in front of him to symbolize a horizon, "but there weren't a lot of people around, so things got boring pretty fast. My closest neighbor was twenty minutes away."

"There aren't a lot of people out here either, though," I pointed out, "but it hasn't snowed in quite a while, so I can't imagine being surrounded by it all the time."

"So Shade..." Rouge changed the topic rather abruptly, turning to lay on her side so that she could look at Shade, "you for a girl over in your homeland? Got one over here yet?"

"Well, I did spend a lot of time with this girl back home named Grace. We weren't really dating or anything, but she'd get mad if she heard me say that out loud."

"Well what happened with the two of you?" Rouge questioned farther, seemingly not caring about any boundaries that Shade might have had.

"I left her at home when I came here," he continued, placing his hand on his chin thoughtfully, "I never said anything to her, so I'll bet that she's staying at my house worried sick and just waiting for me to come home."

There was a moment of silence where Rouge simply stared at Shade in disbelief. But she quickly shook her head and dismissed it without commenting.

"Why'd you even decide to come down here in the first place?" I butted in, no longer able to control my curiosity. Now was as good a time as ever to pester him about any questions that I might have had.

"I just came to where the work was," he put simply, "there wasn't anything keeping me there, so why not?"

"What about Grace?"

"What about her?"

There was an extended silence after he had said this unbelievably heartless thing while staying completely deadpan. Leaving Grace really did have no effect on him, and Rouge and I both got the feeling that asking him to explain further would just leave us more uncomfortable. We let the topic die, and Rouge spoke again to introduce a new once.

"Well, why'd you decide to work with Eggman?" Rouge questioned innocently, "you look like you get around and probably have a ton of people trying to get your help, so why help him of all people?"

"Well..." he started, "I guess it was because this job gave me the opportunity to show everyone over here something new."

"And what does that mean?" I followed up on Rouge's question.

"Everyone here is innocent, and all of the problems are pretty stupid and simple." He answered brutally without missing a beat, "basically, you guys haven't seen the things that I've seen or the type of people like me who are willing to do things that you couldn't imagine."

I may have known Shade relatively well, but these words still caught me by surprise. The hair on the back of my neck stood in a mixture of surprise and horror and an uneasiness crept into my mind. And from the gulp that I heard Rouge force down her theist, I could tell that the uneasiness reached her too. We both laid flat onto our backs and adjusted our pillows and blankets into a comfortable position, not wanting to continue the conversation any farther in fear of hearing something that would cause a nightmare.

"Goodnight guys," Rouge offered as a means to break the tension that had begun to gather around us. It didn't work.

"Goodnight, tomorrow we're gonna put on the first part of the plan. I'll tell you guys more then." Shade said, adjusting himself into a comfortable position.

Neither me nor Rouge responded, instead closing our eyes and trying our hardest to fall asleep. Although it was difficult, I soon found myself sleeping like a baby.


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter is kinda short, but I promise that the next one is much longer than usual. Don't get too mad at me .-.

X

With having to carry Cream and Cheese with me the whole way back to the house, the trip took over twice as long as usual to finish. And when we finally did reach the house, Cream was just as, if not more tired than I was, considering that she still had to walk on her injured limbs because she was much too kind to push all of her body weight onto me. I was carrying Cheese after all, and having to support both of them fully would have left me unbearably tired and most likely unable to complete the entire trip.

I helped Cream walk up the stairs that lead to the front door of my house and walked with her into the spare bedroom place in between mine and Sonic's. I helped her take a seat onto the side of the bed and placed Cheese down beside her. Having been freed from both of them, I straightened my back and stretched out all of the kinks that had gathered on what felt like every muscle in my body. As I turned to leave, I heard Cream clear her voice in an attempt to get my attention.

"Thank you Tails, honestly," she started, bowing her head slightly in a display of gratitude, "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come to help me - and Cheese,"

I chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of my head awkwardly to give my hands something to do. I didn't know exactly how to respond appropriately, but I eventually settled with a "no problem," before turning on my heels and exiting the room.

I fell onto the door as I closed it behind me, letting out a deep breathe that I had been holding in. I still hadn't found the nerve to say anything about yesterday to Cream, and I knew that this weird situation didn't excuse me from that. I had to say something to make things right no matter what. But not right now.

As I passed by Sonic's room I realized that I still hadn't seen him, and at this point I was genuinely concerned about whatever it was that kept him asleep this long. I needed to talk to him soon and update him on everything that had happened earlier, especially now that Cream was having to stay at our house to keep safe. I walked over to his room and grabbed the door knob, turning it and opening the door. But he wasn't inside.

I was more confused than worried to see his room completely empty, mostly because I was relieved that at least he hadn't just been sleeping for the past twelve hours. I had no clue where he could have gone, but the only rational explanation was that he had simply stepped out while I was out at Amy and Cream's house. My mind was much too preoccupied to worry too much about it, so that was the conclusion that I went with.

I closed Sonic's door and made my way into the kitchen to find something for Cream and Cheese to eat. I'm sure that the day's events had left them starving, and the incessant stomach growling that I heard from the two of them as we walked from their house to mine made it easy to notice.

I dug around in the fridge until I eventually found some leftover hotdogs that Sonic had used to make chili dogs the night before. I'm not sure what kind of food Cream or Cheese, but for now that was all I could find. I threw the hotdogs onto the stove for a few minutes until they started smelling finished and then placed them onto one of the clean plates that Sonic had left in the dishwasher. I let them cool off for a bit before I took them to my starving guests.

I took the plate into my hands and began walking towards the room that Cream and Cheese sat in, but I was stopped in my tracks by the quiet sobs that I heard from inside the room.

I knew that at the time there must have been a million different things going on through her head, but I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. I opened the door, and as soon as I did she looked up at me with a surprised look and tear stained cheeks. I placed the plate of food onto the table at the foot of the bed and sat next to her, picking up Cheese and putting her in my lap. I then wrapped my arms tightly around her without a word and pulled her in to a tight embrace. Her confusion went away after a few second, and she began sobbing into my chest with much more force than before. All I could think to do was run my hand along her back comfortingly.

She eventually stopped crying but refused to move from the position that I held her in, instead gripping onto the fur on my chest with her fingers. I eventually laid us both down onto the bed side by side, still holding each other tightly. The weariness of the things she went through that day mixed with the tiredness that not sleeping at all the night before made it easy for the both of us to fall asleep like this.

Platonically, of course.


	6. Chapter 6

Is putting fanfiction on deviantart still a thing or is that super cringey? I gotta know so I know whether to put this on there or not :(

Also, should I add some sort of picture onto this story? Does that entice people to check it out more than if I just left it blank? Lemme know pls

Next few chapters are gonna be a bit longer than usual since things are starting to pick up, so keep yourself in the loop by following or faving the story. Also review just cause I'd love to hear what you guys gotta say :)

X

I awoke with a start as the sun began to rise, a habit that I had acquired a while back when I used to be constantly barraged with an array of different jobs that required me to wake up super early. That time has long since passed though, yet the habits I had acquired would not.

About a year ago, I would work with clients all over the area along with Dr. Robotnik, not just him alone. But as I defeated the dangers that the forests held and fixed the problems that the citizens had, the amount of work I received became lower and lower until eventually Dr. Robotnik became the only person to give me steady work, which I am extremely appreciative of; even if he gave me the exact same job every time he asked for my services.

It was with Dr. Robotnik that I met Rouge, one of the only people that I would call my "friend", even if we didn't spend any time together outside of work. She was one of the only people I could talk to about random things and not become extremely bored, and in return I'd like to think that she thought the same of me.

I got up from the bed clenching my hands against my temples in protest as my brain begged for me to go back to sleep. I would have loved to comply with the request, but I knew that trying to fall asleep would just be a waste of effort. Once I was awake, there was nothing that could have made me fall back asleep.

The sun initially made it difficult to open my eyes, yet I was still able to force them open with a bit of effort. I looked around the room confused, having forgotten at first that I had not fallen asleep at home the night before and instead agreed to go to bed over to Shade's house. As soon as I remembered this, everything started to make a lot more sense.

As I thought, Shade and Rouge were still both asleep on their respective air mattresses when I looked over at them. Shade was strewn out comically on the mattress, all of his limbs sprawled out as if he were trying to give it a hug. It was an image that I couldn't help but smirk at.

Rouge, on the their hand, slept with an elegant posture that I stopped for a few seconds to simply gawk at. Her lips were ever so slightly agape as she slept, emitting a quiet squeak as she breathed in and out. She was also curled into a loose ball shape, her arms up near her neck as she gripped onto her blanket and her legs pulled up against her chest, resting right underneath her breasts. She truly looked beautiful. And even though she was asleep, I still looked away embarrassed as a blush overcame my face.

I had no idea what time I was at that moment, but I knew that it would have been rude of me to wake either of them up from their slumber just because of my sleeping pattern being screwed up. And so I stood from the air mattress I had slept on and folded my blanket into a neat square shape before placing it on top. I then stepped outside, being sure to close the door quietly behind me as to not disturb the other two. I took a deep breathe and was met with the pleasant scent of the nearby lake. The air felt almost, for lack of a better word, cleaner as it entered my lungs. I sat down on the grass below, still coated with wetness from the morning dew, and gazed up at the clouds above.

One of the clouds I saw looked like a deer, and I could have sworn that another one looked exactly like a tea pot. I continued to identify the different clouds as they passed until I heard Shade's door opening a few minutes later. I looked over and was greeted by an extremely tired looking Rouge who greeted me while rubbing the sleep from her eyes and yawning deeply. I had to say, she looked much more beautiful asleep.

"Cloud gazing?" She asked in almost a mocking tone, "I had no idea that you were into such lame hobbies."

"It does its job and kills time at least," I responded, looking down briefly to indulge in my habit of ripping blades or grass out of the ground and throwing them randomly, "it keeps my mind occupied so that I'm not thinking too much about anything."

"And what do you have to be thinking so much about?" She asked as she took a seat next to mine, also looking up at the clouds as they passed. "That one looks like Shade."

I stopped to think for a minute after looking up and seeing no clouds that looked anything like Shade. What was I afraid to be thinking about anyway, had anything that significant happened to me recently? If something had, I sure as hell couldn't remember it now.

I answered her question with an "I don't know", and we both fell into a comfortable silence as we gazed at the clouds together. She broke the silence after a few moments.

"Shade is awake by the way," she informed me, "he's making breakfast though and I didn't really feel like helping him, so I came out here"

"How selfish of you," I smirked, closing my eyes for a moment, "I thought girls were supposed to do all the cooking, I can't believe you just left it for Shade to do."

She swatted her hand and hit my shoulder playfully, "not all girls have to live by your standards you know."

"Only the good ones do," I countered quickly.

She simply shook her head in a mock frustration as she stood up and walked into the house. I did the same a few moments after, gazing at the clouds having become uninteresting.

As soon as I entered the house, I was greeted with a pleasant smell that immediately made my lips moisten. I couldn't tell exactly what any of the foods were, but the wide range of different items all mixed together to create a smell that I could only describe as breathtaking. I normally skipped breakfast to ensure that I wouldn't cramp up if I had to do anything physically immediately after, but now was as good a time as any to take a break from that mentality.

I walked over to Shade, who had just finished placing the food onto three plates, and offered him a greeting. He smiled at me and pushed one of the plates in my direction, "you should thank me, I heard your stomach rumbling all night. I probably should have made dinner last night too, that's my bad."

"No, don't worry about it." I took the plate and went to sit down, "this is enough for me."

Rouge grabbed a plate herself and sat next to me, digging in to the food before I could even grab my silverware. Shade sat on the opposite side of us in front of me with the last plate, stopping to say a quick prayer to himself before digging in.

"That's rather peculiar," I said after swallowing a mouthful of pancake, "I never saw you as the religious type."

"I wasn't for a long time, but it eventually came back to me," he said before taking a bite, "I figured that there was no reason not to say a prayer every now and then."

"We should start doing that," Rouge pointed her fork in my direction, "saying a few prayers might fix some of your screwed morals."

I ignored Rouge and put my attention back towards the food in front of me. Shade spoke up again after a few moments.

"Well, after we are done eating I was thinking we could go ahead and get the first part of the plan done." He said calmly, bringing his fork to his mouth again. Rouge and I choked on our food a bit.

"Already?" I questioned, "its only been one day."

"Well, I figured that since we were all here, we might as well get the first part of the plan done instead of just talking over it." He explained calmly, "it's really not that much work, and the earlier we get done the better.

"I guess so..." Rouge finally agreed.

"Basically, I know where Amy and Cream live and they have two Chaos Emeralds. They aren't strong at all so we could easily go and get them without much trouble." Shade explained almost too bluntly.

"We are just gonna go in?" I questioned, not believing what I was hearing, "is that really a good idea? A lot could go wrong, and if things got messy it would make getting the other emeralds much more difficult."

Shade scoffed in amusement, "you really don't think that we can take the emeralds from two little girls? All Amy has is a hammer, and the other one can't fight at all."

"I mean, you aren't wrong," Rouge admitted again, placing her fork down onto the table as she finished her food, "but I still don't feel good about it."

"Just trust me, guys," he dismissed, "I wouldn't do this if I wasn't confident. I've been working long enough to know if something is a bad idea."

"I'll trust you," I finally told him as we both placed our utensils onto the table after finishing our food, "but if things don't work out, you'll have to start letting me and Rouge help plan stuff out."

"That's fine by me," Shade let a big smile erupt on his face as he pushed his hand forward. I grabbed his outstretched hand and shook it, making an agreement on the compromise that we had made.

"So I guess we can get out of here now?" He questioned after placing his hands at his side.

"We might as well go now if we are gonna go at all," Rouge smiled and outstretched her wings before starting to float.

"All right then, let's go!"

And so we followed Shade as he lead us away from his house and into the forest. Rouge and I remained a safe distance behind him throughout the trip, not wanting to lose him by letting him run too far ahead of us. All the while, my heartbeat quickened with excitement.


	7. Chapter 7

I'd say I'm maybe a fourth done with the story at this point, if not a little less. Things are going to pick up from this point on though, so if you've stuck with me up to this point, you're in for a treat.

X

A house came into view about a mile or so into the distance before Shade, who took the lead in front of us by a few feet, motioned for us to stop running. We sat atop a short hill behind a few branches to conceal us from anyone who might have looked in our direction as we inspected our surroundings. The house was fairly decent in size and looked to be two stories tall. There was a tall fence connected to the back of the house that created a back yard of sorts, though there was nothing of interest in the backyard itself aside from the unkept dirt remnants of a failed small garden. I took note of this, seeing as how the back entrance looked to be the best place to enter the home without drawing too much attention to ourselves.

"No need for pussyfooting around anything," Shade whispered loud enough for me and Rouge to hear, "I've done recon on the house a few days ago and saw that they don't lock the front door, so that might be the best way to get in."

Even with an unlocked front door, I'm sure there were better ways to get into the house that could give us a strategic advantage. Still though, Dr. Robotnik put Shade in charge, and I knew from working with him in the past that telling him my thinking would be a waste of time if it didn't match up to his. He was the kind of person who wanted everything to go exactly as he wanted it to, and I normally would have resented this if not for his flawless track record.

We slowly crawled down the hill and towards the house, scurrying from tree to tree and branch to branch in order to keep ourselves hidden. I would have guessed that Amy and Cream weren't expecting us and hiding ourselves was unnecessary, but I had to admit that the extra caution wasn't hurting anything.

We reached the front of the house after a few minutes and pushed ourselves onto the walls on either side of the door. Shade gave me and Rouge a nod and barged into the house without a second thought. My eyes widened in surprise and my heartbeat quickened at the suddenness of Shade's movements, but I followed him in a few seconds after nonetheless.

"Welp, looks like the house is empty." Shade looked around as he said this. He then began relaxing for a bit by taking his shoes off, much to my surprise.

"Hey!" I called out to him, "are you sure that's a good idea? They could just be upstairs."

"They aren't." Shade dismissed quickly without a second thought. bending over and throwing his shoes into the corner of the room as to keep anyone from tripping on them; a rather unexpectedly polite display if you asked me. "Start looking around down here for the emeralds, afterwards we can look upstairs if they don't come home before we get to that point."

And with that, we all began sifting around in drawers and checking under furniture in an attempt to find the emeralds that we came for. At first Rouge and I tried to keep the house relatively clean as we looked, but as the search continued, we began to lose interest in how the house looked and instead threw things out of our way absentmindedly after we had searched through or around them. Shade was in the kitchen searching, and from the sounds of silverware hitting the floor and plates breaking, I could tell that he was having no more success than we were.

We hadn't come here to destroy the place, but by the time we had searched the downstairs we realized that that was exactly what we did. The place was cluttered and damaged beyond belief, the floors littered with trash and the furniture thrown sometimes to the complete opposite side of the room as where they started.

"I'm pretty sure it's not down here!" I called out to Shade, who had just stopped scrounging around in the kitchen. "We should go look upstairs, and quick. I wanna get done before they get home."

Shade exited the kitchen with an intense look plastered on his face. I was confused, but the look that he wore intimidated me to the point of being afraid to ask or say anything. Instead, I let him pass me by and look up the stairs towards the second story without a word. He clenched his fists as his lips contorted into a wicked smirk.

"We have company."

He held onto the railing to steady himself as he walked up the stairs, a strange energy emitting from him that didn't just intimidate me, but scared me. I recognized this feeling though, it was the feeling that I felt every time we were a few seconds from some kind of combat.

I looked over at Rouge to my side and saw that she was completely petrified, afraid to move even an inch. Her hands were clasped together into a tight ball and she could do nothing more than stare at Shade with a look of pure horror. I walked over and placed my hand on her shoulder comfortingly, assuring her that going up the stairs with him would be fine.

And so we followed a few steps behind him as he climbed the stairs agonizingly slow, as if he were a lion antagonizing his prey. When he reached the top of the stairs, he took a quick glance around the room to get an idea of his surroundings. There were three different rooms in front of him, but he made his way towards the center one without any hesitation whatsoever, knowing that whatever he was looking for was in that room. He reached for the doorknob slowly as Rouge and I both looked on as if we were watching a brutal car wreck that we couldn't look away from no matter how hard we tried.

"Ah!"

The door was opened quickly from the other side, and a small rabbit and her Chao both lunged towards Shade, the rabbit swinging a vase and the Chao attacking with a gold club. Without flinching or thinking for even a second, Shade raised his hand and released a powerful surge of energy that threw both of his attackers back into the wall behind them. The Chao let out a pitiful yelp as it slid down the wall, passed out, and the Rabbit coughed a silent, violent cough as her head fell weakly. At this point, I recognized the both of them as Cream and Cheese, two of the people that lived in the house.

Shade stepped into the bedroom menacingly, pushing over a table that was in his way and flipping the bed frame in the corner of the room just to mess the room up some more for his own enjoyment, I assumed. He stood over the two weakened creatures and gave a frightening smirk once again. He knelt down within eye shot of Cream before violently grabbing the fur atop her head, forcing her to look at him in the eye.

"I'm gonna ask this once..." he said simply, tightening his grip on her fur and causing her to grimace in pain. "Where are the Chaos Emeralds?"

"Are..." she started weakly, her sentence being interrupted by a spur of coughs, "are you working with Eggman? Why do you want them-"

Before she had the chance to finish speaking, Shade pulled Cream's head forward and slammed it back against the wall behind her. She let out a cry of pain, and I couldn't help but recoil in reaction as well.

"That's not what I asked." He put simply, seemingly unfazed by the trickle of blood that began falling down the right side of her mouth. She coughed again before speaking.

"I can't tell you, Sonic and Tails and Knuckles would never forgive me..."

"Alright then." Shade let go of the top of Cream's head, letting it fall forward and fave the ground again. I could hear Cream's breathing soften slightly, as I could tell she thought that she was safe. She couldn't have been more wrong.

"You did this to yourself."

And he grabbed her arm tightly with his right hand, digging in with his palm slightly to get past her fur and reach her bare skin. He then smiled again, releasing another surge of energy that burned away her fur and left a dark burn on her skin that gave off a smell that made Rouge and I gag.

He then stood up without saying a word, throwing the tablecloth that had been on the table he knocked over on top of his two victims and turning away. He shot his energy at the walls around him and cried out almost frustratedly, though nothing had happened that could have prompted such a huge reaction. I had never gotten such a close look at him releasing this energy, but from where I stood it looked as though he was shooting flames from his palms.

He took a few breaths to calm himself down and walked over to Rouge and I as if nothing had happened. He closed the door behind him and told us to start looking for the chaos emeralds, which we did without complaint.

As we scrounged around inside of the different bedrooms looking for the chaos emeralds, Shade calmly made his way downstairs. After a few minutes, I heard the familiar beeping of the fridge warning that its doors had been left open. He had stolen food out of the fridge.

That fact alone calmed me down slightly and replaced my uneasiness with amusement, and I was able to finally speak to Rouge for the first time since seeing Shade use his powers.

"Do you see what I mean about him being powerful?" I questioned, "I might be fast and you might be able to fly, but he has weapons for hands."

"I don't like it at all."

She looked up at me with a scared look that made my heart ache with pity. Watching him deal with Cream must have been a lot worse for her than for me.

"She's barely eighteen, it just feels so wrong doing that to her," Rouge continued, sniffing slightly to hold back her tears, "what he did was just so... heartless."

I didn't know what to say to this. I might have agreed with her, but I knew that there was nothing that either of us could have done to change anything about Shade's way of getting things done. I let out a deep sigh and shook my head, "there's nothing we can do but get used to it. The sooner we can get the emeralds, the sooner we can get out of here."

As soon as I said this, I found a shining green light emitting from underneath some shirts in a drawer. I couldn't believe how lazily it had been hidden, but as soon as I pulled it out of the drawer, I could confirm to myself just what it was.

"Speaking of finding chaos emeralds," I started, holding my discovery out in Rouge's direction, "here's one of them."

"In a drawer?" She asked almost comically, "what a lame hiding spot."

Right after I had given the emerald to Rouge to put away (don't ask me to specify where she put it), I heard the front door's knob begin to turn. I quickly looked over at Rouge and cursed silently. We both ran down the stairs In time to see Shade taking his position beside the door in preparation for the unforeseen visitor we were about to have.

The stairs had been placed right in front of the door, so Rouge and I were seen the second the door was opened. On the other side of the door, a pink hedgehog wearing a red skirt and top looked up at the two of us with a bewildered gaze. As soon as she saw us, she jumped backwards defensively just in time to escape a punch thrown by Shade.

"Well..." she scoffed, "do I even need to ask what you're here for?"


	8. Chapter 8

I'm writing these chapters ahead so that I have a backlog, and if you haven't noticed yet, I'm putting up a new chapter whenever this story gets off of the front page.

Y'all should still review or fav or follow this story though. They might just be dumb statistics that don't really matter, but it still means a lot when I see that someone likes the story enough to fav or follow it or review. :)

Anyway, here's the next chapter.

X

She had been the first person I'd ever seen be able to avoid one of Shade's attacks, much less one that she didn't see coming, and she had done it with ease. It might have been over a year since she had seen us last, but she was still able to jump right into combat the moment she saw us as if she had seen us yesterday.

Rouge, Shade, and I all stepped outside of the house into the front yard in preparation for a fight with Amy. Amy's ability to dodge Shade's attacks must have been a fluke, there was no way she was going to stand a chance whenever Shade began using his powers against her. If she knew what she was in for, she would have definitely dropped out of the fight.

"Where's Cream!?" She questioned loudly, lowering her hips slightly and entering a stance that prepared her for combat. She glared at all three of us as she brought her hands forward to block any attacks that might have come her way.

"Don't worry, I only knocked her out," Shade gloated, chuckling to himself, "the burn on her arm might leave a bald spot though if you don't go check on it soon."

Amy might have tried to not let his taunts get to her, but even I could tell that his words were making her faulter. She began shaking lightly in anger and her glare intensified.

"Who the hell are you anyway!?"

"Even if I told you it wouldn't matter, because I'm sure one hit to the head will make you forget everything that just happened." He hunched down into a combat ready position that looked similar to Amy's and began running towards her, "so let's hurry up and get this out of the way!"

Shade reached out his hand towards Amy as he approached, but Amy was quick to react as she grabbed it, stopping it just inches from colliding with her face. Shade smiled and giggled to himself before letting out a surge of energy that landed right in between Amy's eyes.

She recoiled in shock, yelling out in pain as she desperately pushed her palms against the area the surge had landed in an attempt to dull the pain. It just intensified as the seconds passed though, and Amy messing with it only made things worse. And so she lowered her hands from her face and grit her teeth to withstand the pain and stared down Shade, who had taken a few steps back to admire the pain he had caused Amy.

Rouge and I stood a few feet to the side of the action, simply watching as the events unfolded. Although we both remained ready to defend ourselves at any moment, we did not interfere.

"Don't you think we should help out?" Rouge questioned, taking a step forward aggressively, only to be stopped by my outstretched arm in front of her.

"I don't know about you, but I really don't wanna get caught in the crossfire of Shade's fire shots." I explained calmly, "I've seen a ton of people get hit by those, and not one of them has ever been happy about it."

Rouge took a step back, but remained tense. I wasn't sure exactly why she was so eager to jump in, but as long as she didn't actually do it I didn't really care.

"Well, just take a look at how tough this one is!" Shade chortled loudly, mostly to himself, "most people just give up the second I hit them with one of those, but you're still standing even after I hit you in the face!"

"I don't know who you think I am," Amy responded, rubbing the wound with her arm one last time, "but I'm no wimp!"

And with that, she jumped forward towards Shade with a cocked fist ready to be thrown at whoever was in front of her. Shade lifted his hand amusedly to defend himself, the power that was surging through it making tiny electric currents that bounced between his fingers in the form of tiny lightning bolts. But at the last possible moment, Amy dodged Shade's hand by side stepping to his right and unleashed her fist onto the side of his face.

He was sent flying a few feet back, landing face first onto the ground and sliding along it for a couple of inches. He did not stay down for long though, instead pushing himself onto his feet without a sound. The smirk on his face was gone though, replaced with a serious look that seemed to announce that he was done playing around.

"That one hurt," he commented, rubbing one of the many wounds that covered his face. "You're gonna wish you hadn't done that."

He shot forward with unprecedented speed that made even me look slow in comparison and slammed his fist into Amy's face as hard as he could, sending her flying twice as far as she had sent him. I couldn't help but flinch upon seeing the hit, noting that it was one of the most painful punches I had ever seen anyone take.

Amy stood up much slower than Shade had, tripping on her own feet as she tried to push herself up from the ground. In the back of my head I had hoped that she would just accept defeat, but I knew that anyone in the Sonic team wouldn't do that without a huge fight.

"I... can't... lose..." she murmured quietly to herself, breathing heavily as she stood bent over with her hands on her knees. "Sonic has done so much more than this for me... this is nothing compared to what he's done!"

She took a step forward and shot her head in Shade's direction, meeting his eyes with an intense gaze that seemed to scream on her behalf, seeing as how she seemed too weak to do it herself. "You're gonna regret... coming here and messing with my friends!"

Out of thin air a large hammer appeared in between her hands, but it looked much different from the one she used to carry around way back when. It looked to be double in size from what I remembered, and it was glowing with an energy that I couldn't quite identify.

"A weapon with a chaos emerald?" Rouge commented, flabbergasted, "is that even possible?"

I looked closer at the hammer and, just as Rouge had said, I saw a Chaos Emerald poking out from the center of it; almost like a sharp spike, only much more dangerous.

Amy ran forward with the newfound energy that the Chaos Emerald gave to her and lifted the hammer above her head, preparing to swing it down with as much force as she could muster. Shade could not react in time, so instead he just brought both of his arms forward to protect his face from any impact.

Not only did the hammer slam into Shade with an unparalleled force when Amy brought it down to hit him, but the Chaos Emerald also dug into his skin and created a large wound that looked almost as if a huge drill had been dug into him. But with the adrenaline that he had acquired seconds before the power of the Chaos Emeralds had coursed through him and left him in unimaginable pain, he pushed against the hammer and forced Amy to retreat.

They both flew in opposite directions with intense force, skidding against the ground and getting severely cut up by the dirt and rocks that they rubbed against. They both came to a halt after a few seconds, but neither of them looked like they would be getting up any time soon. They both succumbed to their pain and closed their eyes, unconscious.

"This is where we jump in!" I quickly shouted out towards Rouge, running forward towards the hammer that laid on the ground a few inches beside Amy with Rouge just behind me.

But just as I reached the hammer and picked it up off of the ground, I felt an intense sensation push against my chest and force me backwards, causing me to drop the hammer. I saw a blue ball spiraling quickly in front of me and right above Amy. A moment later, it transformed into a figure that I could recognize from a mile away.

"Looks like I got here just in time." Sonic announced.


	9. Chapter 9

I've been super sick lately and haven't been able to stay awake for longer than an hour at a time, so that's why the updates are gonna start coming a bit less frequently.

Fav, follow, and review or else I won't get better and I'll die of having a stomach virus!

X

Sonic stood in front of Rouge and I with an intense look on his face and a no longer glowing ring in his hand that he quickly disposed of. He lowered his hips and entered a combat ready stance as he spoke, "it's a good thing I came over today and got here in time apparently, I thought you guys and Eggman had given up by now."

"And how do you know that we are working with Dr. Robotnik?" I countered, entering a combat stance myself, "what if I just wanted all the power for myself?"

Sonic chuckled, genuinely amused, "I know that you don't care enough about power to go to this much trouble getting it. Eggman would though."

"Well, regardless of why we are here or who sent us," Rouge spoke, being the last one to get into a protective stance to prepare for any moves Sonic made, "we are gonna need that second Chaos Emerald Amy has."

"You wish!"

Sonic ran forward towards Rouge quickly, using his speed to catch her off guard. As competent in a fight as Rouge was, there was no way she could do anything about Sonic's speed. She couldn't very well fight what she couldn't see.

I side stepped in front of Rouge just as Sonic leapt forward, crossing my arms and putting them in front of me to protect Rouge and I from Sonic's attack. The force of Sonic's attack hurt my arm enough for me to be sure that there would be a bruise the next morning, but aside from that, I absorbed the contact with little effort. Once Sonic's momentum had stopped, I quickly straightened my arms and pushed him back with the same power that he had hit me with. He slid to a stop a few feet away, wiping dirt from his knees before entering his stance again.

"Rouge!" I called behind me, only able to glance towards her for a second without worrying about Sonic abruptly attacking, "he's way too fast for you, I don't think there's anything you can do. I need you to grab the second Chaos Emerald and Shade and get out of here while I worry about him, okay?"

"Yea," Rouge sighed and agreed, "Shade doesn't look too heavy. I'll meet you at his house, and If you aren't there twenty minutes after I get there, I'm coming back to get you."

"That's fine, just go!" I ushered her, placing all of my focus onto Sonic once again.

"Not so fast!" He called out, bursting out towards Rouge as she started running at the spot where Shade, Amy, and the Chaos Emerald all lied motionlessly. I intercepted his advance once again, this time being able to absorb the entirety of the attack without any pain before I pushed him backwards with a grunt. I sent him an intense glare as I went onto the offensive by rushing towards him as fast as I could.

"I'm your opponent!" I cocked my fist back and slammed it forward with as much force as I could muster as I got into Sonic's range. He could not absorb the hit as I had his though, and the punch landed in the center of his chest and pushed him back. He coughed and wheezed a few times, a pained look on his face as he lost his breath as a result of my punch. He looked up at me weakly.

"You're gonna wish... YOU NEVER DID THAT!"

Without any warning, all of Sonic's energy came back to him as he lunged towards me with almost twice as much speed as he had before. I was barely able to step to the side fast enough to avoid the attack, but as soon as I did, he reversed his movements instantaneously and dug his head into my spine, pushing me onto the ground face first.

I simply laid there for a few moments, unable to muster the strength to move a single muscle in my body. Sonic had always been a pain to me, but I never remembered him being able to hurt me this bad. Had he been training during the year absence that Dr. Robotnik had taken in attacking him, the complete opposite of what I thought he would do?

"Shadow!"

Rouge's voice calling out to me broke me out of my trance, and I was able to lift my head just enough to see her running towards me with a second Chaos Emerald in her hand.

"No!" I yelled towards her, returning to my senses and forcing myself to stand in spite of my pain. "Get out of here, we need that Emerald!"

Rouge stopped running and stood frozen for a second, not knowing what the best move would be. Finally, she cursed to herself and ran towards Shade's unconscious body, flinging him over her shoulder as she began running. As she ran in the direction of Shade's house, she turned and shouted one last encouraging comment, "you better beat him, Shadow!"

I knew that I had to best him if there was to be any hope of me getting the rest of the Chaos Emeralds from the rest his friends, but at the moment I had no idea how I was going to do it. He has had his way with me thus far, and he seemed to have advanced his fighting more than I have since I had seen him last.

I looked down at the cuff I wore on my right hand, thinking to myself for a moment before dismissing the idea I had been toying with by shaking my head. That was my trump card, and using it during the first fight I've had in over a year would be a huge mistake. It was one time use, and there was no way I was going to waste it right now.

I looked up at Sonic, surprised for a moment at how tired and damaged he looked. I didn't remember doing much damage to him, but apparently I had worn him out more than I gave myself credit for. I thought I had felt terrible and tired, but at this point I hoped that I wasn't even half as tired as Sonic looked. Maybe I had half a chance after all.

And so I rushed towards him once again with a cocked fist, preparing to punch him again. He was quick to step to the side and avoid my punch with ease unlike the first time, but that it exactly what I counted on him doing. As soon as he stepped to the side, I swung my now outstretched arm towards him and tried to hit him with my elbow.

But as my arm came closer to his side, he bent his knees slightly and was able to jump into the air moments before my blow connected. He came falling back down to the ground with his fists clenched a moment after he had jumped, but I still wasn't surprised. With my opposite hand, I sent one last punch towards him. Knowing that he didn't have enough time to dodge another blow successfully, Sonic instead sent a punch of his own in my direction, but I wasn't the target.

His fist slammed hard into mine, and I mean HARD. For a moment I was numbed by the adrenaline that the fight had given me, but a moment later I was introduced to what broken fingers felt like. I wasn't sure if they were all broken, but the pain that I felt told me that at least one of them was. Sonic felt just as bad though, as I saw him gripping his hand tightly as he fell to his knees in pain.

"Holy fuck that hurts!"

I wasn't one to cuss on normal occasions, but this certainly wasn't normal. I had been in a lot of fights and done a lot of things that have hurt, but the pain that I was feeling right at that moment had to be one of the most painful things I had ever experienced.

But after a few seconds, the pain was replaced with a burning hatred aimed towards the person that had caused me the pain, Sonic. I knew that this wasn't a normal reaction, but that's how I had always responded to being hurt in extreme ways. I took my focus away from the pain in my hand and sent it instead towards Sonic, letting my hate momentarily numb my fingers.

I paced towards him menacingly as he remained on his knees, grabbing his hand tightly and gritting his teeth to fight through the pain. I stopped walking when I was a few feet from his head and looked down at him with a glare.

"You put up a good fight, but you're done."

I lifted my opposite fist and brought it down on the back of his head with a ton of force, knocking him out almost instantaneously.


	10. Chapter 10

Should I change this story to an M rating and write a couple intimate scenes later on in the story? I think I will if anyone cares enough to tell me to, so let me know xD

Also, I'm pretty much over my sickness, but now I'm back at school so that's gonna be taking up a lot of my time. I'll still try to get a couple or more chapters in every week or so, so don't worry!

X

I opened my eyes with a start after what felt like just a couple hours after closing them, surprised by the fatigue that still clung desperately onto my body and gave me a pounding headache. As I lifted my head from my pillow and opened my eyes with a groan, I was met surprisingly with the face of Cream as she continued to sleep soundly beside me. I had forgotten the situation that led to me sleeping with her in my arms, and once I did finally remember I blushed intensely. Still though, I was rather proud of myself for being able to make such a bold move so quickly without fear of any rejection or anything of the sort.

I thought that it would have been polite of me to get out of bed and have breakfast ready for Cream whenever she woke up, but at the moment she was using my arm as a pillow and looked much too comfortable for me to change the way she was sleeping. And so I laid my head back onto the pillow, content with waiting until she awoke before starting out my day.

From behind me I heard a familiar squeak, though Cream's position made it impossible for me to look and see exactly what was making the noise. This problem solved itself a few moments later though, as the owner of the squeaks gripped onto the fur on my back and climbed over onto my front side. It was Cheese, who I had completely forgotten about until right now. I always saw Cheese as an extension of Cream to a certain extent, so having to deal with them individually and not as a duo always made me head spin.

He sent me an intensely threatening look before using his paw, or at least that's what I think you refer to his arm as, to point at me and then Cream. That gesture could have meant a lot of different things, but I for one took it to mean that he did not approve of the moves I had made on Cream the night before or the position that we had been in right now. I sent a glare back at him, using my free arm to brush him away and push him off the bed. As he landed on the ground, he let out a very loud call.

"Hm?" Cream mumbled in her sleep, jerking around a bit before finally opening her eyes to meet mine. And the second she did, she turned the brightest shade of pink that I had ever seen. She backed away from my face a bit and stammered over her words pathetically, and I felt like she would have stayed that way for hours if I hadn't said anything.

"G-good morning." I forced out of my mouth before laughing awkwardly, "fancy seeing you here."

"H-hey Tails," the replied cutely as she dug her face into her arm, almost hiding from me. This gesture alone with her words sent a shock to my heart that almost made me recoil in both surprise and pain.

"Now that your awake, is it okay if I have my arm back?" I asked sheepishly, once again laughing awkwardly as a means to cut the tense atmosphere. "I was gonna make some breakfast but I didn't want to bother you while you were asleep."

"Oh, I had no idea!" She quickly sat upright in response to my words, still blushing intensely, before adding as almost an afterthought, "let me help you with breakfast!"

"No, I've got it." I sat up myself and eventually stood from the bed, stretching out the arm that Cream had slept on after realizing that it was rather sore from being stuck in a less than favorable position for so long. "You don't really know your way around the kitchen, plus I already know everything that we have in the freezer."

"Alright," Cream admitted defeat, hiding her face in her hands as if I hadn't seen her blushing already. Before leaving, I couldn't help but tease her slightly by ruffling the hair atop her head with my hand.

"I just remembered," I stopped as I reached the door, "the shower is right next door if you wanted to clean up, I'll hop in after you're done and we've both finished breakfast."

"A shower does sound nice, thanks so much. You're really saving my tail by doing all this." She looked up at me sheepishly before bowing her head in a sign of thanks.

"Really, don't worry about it!" I shook my hands dismissively in front of my face, embarrassed by her huge display of appreciation, "if there's anything else you need don't be afraid to ask. I have some extra clothes in the drawers beside you, but they might be a bit baggy on you."

Before she could say thanks again I closed the door and walked quickly over to the kitchen to start making breakfast. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to make, but I knew at the very least that I had some eggs in the fridge to scramble.

I dug around in the fridge for a few moments desperately after not immediately seeing the eggs, checking every drawer just to make sure that they were truly gone before I changed my plans. Sonic must have eaten them again, which was really starting to piss me off considering that I was the one who went out and bought them for MYSELF. As I looked through the items I had and tried to think of what breakfast foods I could make with them, I heard the bathroom door open and close as I assumed Cream walked in.

It would've been so easy to take a quick peek...

No! I shook my head and dismissed my own perverted thoughts, not letting my kind gesture of letting her stay at my house become a disgusting, perverted fantasy. I took a bag of bacon and some dough to make biscuits out of the fridge and started cooking them, dismissing the fact that it was an overly simple and bland meal by reminding myself that I was welcoming Cream into my home on very short notice, so there wasn't really any time for her to have expected me to shop for food beforehand.

As I flipped the last strips of bacon on the pan and put the biscuits into the oven, I heard the shower in the bathroom turn on. There was a quiet yelp from the bathroom as I'm sure the water came out just as cold as it always has before Cream was able to adjust the temperature.

One quick look could almost be like a favor in return for her staying at your house...

No! I dismissed the thoughts again, this time shaking my head and also slamming my fists onto it as punishment. If I looked at Cream while she was showering I would be a disgusting person, and there was no way I was going to allow that.

After about twenty minutes, the biscuits came out of the oven perfectly golden and all of the bacon had been put on a plate and placed on the kitchen table. I didn't want to start eating without Cream, thinking that she might find it rude of me, so I simply sat down at the table and watched the hands on the clock in front of me tick as the seconds passed by.

After another fifteen minutes had passed and Cream still hadn't left the shower, I finally let my mind begin to wander. I could just go check up on her real quick, there's no harm in that...

And so I stood from the table and walked over to the bathroom door, my heart pounding. And when I saw that the door was slightly open, I couldn't hold myself back anymore, no matter how much I wanted to.

I knocked on the door with enough force to push it open a few more inches before shouting to Cream, "breakfast is ready whenever you get out!"

"Ok, thanks! I'll be out in a couple minutes!" She called back to me.

I waited for a few moments, giving her a chance to look at the door to respond to my call and then go back to focusing on the shower before I moved my face towards the crack in the door. I placed my eye on the crack in the door and peered in to the room.

She faced away from me as she dug her fingers through the hair on her head that had been drenched in shampoo. Her entire body was drenched in the shower water, causing her fur to cling to her tall, slender body... she really had changed a lot since we were both kids...

I quickly pulled away from the crack in the door and pulled it as close to shut as I could without making a sound. I hit my hand against the side of my head and cursed to myself, saying how much of a piece of shit I was for peeping on someone like I was a middle schooler. As I was cursing to myself, I heard the water shut off, which told me that I needed to get away from the bathroom door as fast as possible.

I half sprinted to the kitchen table and sat down, beginning to make a plate of bacon and biscuits for myself so that I would seem nonchalant. I heard the bathroom door open and I gazed towards it absent mindedly, trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

Cream waved at me and smiled innocently as she walked towards the kitchen table. She wore one of Sonic's old shirts and a pair of shorts that I knew were mine, considering that Sonic was never the type of person to own shorts. The clothes were at least three sizes too big for her, and the shirt looked more like a dress than a shirt. If they would ever make a dress with a tacky looking lightning bolt illustration drawn on the front, that is.

"Sorry for not being able to make anything more interesting," I apologized as I bit into one of the biscuits, "but it tastes really good, so dig in!"

Cream sat down across from me and made a plate for herself that was much smaller than mine, which made me self conscious of my meal portions for a moment. We both sat and ate in silence.

The whole reason that I had gone to her house yesterday was to explain why I wasn't at her party the day before, and it just occurred to me at that moment that I still hadn't said anything about it. And, just as an afterthought, I could have made myself feel better about peeping on her by apologizing and explaining the whole party situation. It was now or never, and so I finally spoke up.

"Hey... about your party the other day..." I started, looking up at her and placing my hands on the table.

"Don't worry about it, honestly!" She tried to dismiss quickly, shaking her head furiously, "you've done so much for me the past couple of days it's honestly no big deal!"

"But that doesn't change the fact that it was screwed up of me to forget your party like I did, and I've felt bad about it ever since." I continued earnestly, refusing to break eye contact so that she knew how serious I was, "I was working on my plane all morning and Sonic was just hanging out like he always does, but that's no excuse. I'm gonna try a lot harder to remember all of the things everyone has going on from now on."

Cream didn't know what to say for a minute, her mouth simply agape as she tried to think of the words to say. Finally, she looked down at the table sadly, "thank you, but it isn't that big of a deal. Not many people showed up anyway so you weren't missing much."

The look that she gave mixed with the words that she said really messed with my head and sent a wave of depression through me. These past few days must have been hard for her, and it didn't help things that I didn't do anything to make them better. And so I lifted my hands from the table, formed them into fists, and slammed them back down confidently.

"That does it!" I cried to the heavens, "we are having another party for you when everything is back to normal, and this time it's gonna be the best party ever!"

I looked down at Cream after not hearing her say anything. The appreciative tears welling up in her eyes and the thankful smile she sent towards me was the only response I needed.

"That settles it then," I said, "but we have to find out where Sonic went first."


End file.
